Green Course Listing

“Think about the kind of world you want to live and work in. What do you need to know to help build that world? Demand that your teachers teach you that.”-Paul Goodman

“All education is environmental education.”David Orr

At St. Olaf, you can improve your sustainability skills in almost any course, since virtually all of them deal with nature or culture, and many of them involve basic sustainability skills that include scientific analysis, diverse perspectives, critical thinking, ecocriticism, effective communication, systems thinking, materials awareness, cultural norms, political activity, social conscience and social change, consumer consciousness, media literacy, advertising awareness, conservation, commons thinking, carbon capability, appropriate technology, and long-term thinking. In any class, you can, as Paul Goodman suggests, demand that your teachers teach you about connections to sustainability.

But some courses in the St. Olaf curriculum really focus on environmental issues and/or sustainability questions. This list is our best attempt to capture them all in one place for your convenience. If you’re unsure about how much a course treats the issues that matter to you, feel free to e-mail the professor.

This icon indicates that a course is green focused. Other courses in the listing are green related, meaning that topics in this course touch on areas and/or skills related to environmental issues or sustainability.